


our Soviet selves

by Naraht



Series: Lilia & Yakov [6]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 15:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16140158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: The photographs in this exhibition are from the early years of their first marriage, in the 1980s, when Baranovskaya and Feltsman regularly photographed each other in the nude.





	our Soviet selves

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Yakov Week 2018.
> 
> Clearly I've been in this fandom too long because I'm starting to write things that are a little... out of the ordinary. But once this idea occurred to me, I couldn't get it out of my head. So here you have it.

** Our Soviet selves – Baranovskaya and Feltsman review **

**Somerset House, London**  
*******

_Nude portraits by a Soviet couple blend domesticity, nostalgia and transcendent beauty._

Lilia Baranovskaya and Yakov Feltsman are household names in Russia. She is the renowned former _prima ballerina assoluta_ of the Bolshoi Ballet; he is a figure skating coach and was the Soviet Union's bronze medallist in men's singles at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. Neither have been known as photographers – until now.

The photographs in this exhibition are from the early years of their first marriage, in the 1980s, when Baranovskaya and Feltsman regularly photographed each other in the nude. Some of these photographs were developed by a friend with a darkroom; some remained on negatives until recently; and some were taken with a Polaroid camera, then accessible only to a few.

They present a powerful mix of the domestic, the quotidian and the transcendent. In the background, a kitchen table from which dinner has not yet been cleared; the edge of a rumpled bed; a potted plant in a dusty window. There are spills of light, the grain of the film, slight failures of focus and exposure. One never forgets that these are snapshots taken at home.

Equally, one never forgets that the two subjects of these photographs are both athletes and artists. The perfectly calculated curve of a hand, tendons standing in high relief, the contour of muscles beneath the skin. Here there is no sensuality in repose – rather a proud, conscious melding of strength and beauty. The few images that show Baranovskaya and Feltsman in relaxation seem to have been taken in the aftermath of physical exertion or the afterglow of sex. 

An image that lingers: a very young Baranovskaya standing _en pointe_ by the oven in their small apartment, wearing nothing but her pointe shoes, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. Her _port de bras_ is perfect. Her gaze is fixed on the camera, her chin raised, her expression unreadable. 

A Western viewer in 2018 wonders what these photographs meant to Baranovskaya and Feltsman when they were taken in the Soviet Union of the early 1980s. In places they read as expressions of pride from two young lovers who were, after all, a part of the Soviet elite. In an image from a Crimean holiday in 1982, Feltsman lounges on the hood of a new, vividly teal-coloured Moskvitch car parked in a woodland clearing.

Yet the images also seem defiant expressions of a private life beyond the control of the state. (One is conscious of the fact that both Baranovskaya and Feltsman are Jewish.) After all, they would hardly have been exhibited publicly in Soviet times. 

A recent resurgence of Soviet nostalgia in Russia perhaps provides a natural context for this exhibition. Yet there must be a personal nostalgia for Baranovskaya and Feltsman as well: these images are being shared now, for the first time, a year after their remarriage following a decade-long divorce. And fittingly so, for the love behind the lens is always clear. This is a tribute both to a bygone era and to a relationship that seemingly has endured despite it all.

When the exhibition premiered back in April at the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art in Saint Petersburg, public interest was so high that it was almost impossible to get tickets. Now that it's moved to London, you'll find it easier to get through the door.

_At Somerset House, London from 7 October to 3 November._


End file.
